Virtual Japanese phone number

Hello! I'm having a problem and would appreciate if someone could help me with an answer.

When I lived in Japan a few years ago, I joined an official fanclub for my favorite band. I returned to my country and changed the fanclub address to a friendfs who is still living there, but my softbank phone number is naturally not in service anymore.

Today, the fanclub changed the rules. You canft access your account without receiving a message with a code on your phone. I donft know what to do. My friend canft let me use her number since shefs in the same fanclub and you canft have two accounts with one number. And the fanclub will only accept a Japanese phone number, so can't change it to mine.

I read on the internet something about virtual phone numbers, but donft quite understand. How does it work? Is it possible to have a number that seems from Japan but to receive the messages on your phone/computer?

I'm pretty desperate since without that fanclub account I can't apply for concert tickets, and the tour is coming soon. Thanks in advance!

You could get a Skype number - Y2400 for a year with an 050 prefix.

Receiving sms messages to voip and voip-like services is a common problem however and not always successful. Try the skype route, it's not expensive. But in case that fails, another solution would be for your friend to get you a prepaid phone just for this purpose. A softbank prepaid will end up costing you around 1000 yen/mo plus the cost of the phone. Not the cheapest or easiest but it will definitely work.

Thank you for the replies!

Yes I also found the Skype option but apparently you need to be a resident of Japan to use it. I'm not sure if they properly check you or not, but I'm a bit scared to say I'm a resident when I'm not.

Also, there isn't only an SMS option for the fanclub, I can also receive a call from a robot which tells me the code.

I'm just not sure it will work. Will they be able to tell what I did? Or those numbers look exactly like a local one?

you might try flynumber
http://flynumber.com/virtual-phone-number/japan

Re Skype requiring you to be resident - that sounds weird as they promote the service as being to have a number when you are not resident - that's the point. I've used two skype numbers in the past for countries I wasn't in because I needed a local number for a business - and when I got my my most recent one in Japan (which actually didn't do what I needed), I didn't see anything about neededing to be resident in the terms.